Long story short version is that in America, the "no child left behind" stratagem of the wonderfully brilliant man that was known as Bush Jr, decided to give out funding based on perceived educational effectiveness. IE: A school that has higher marks must be benefiting its students better, as numbers don't lie. Except when the people putting those numbers down realize that funding is tied to passing and achievement rates, ergo schools which lack the ability to educate properly end up with large numbers of failing students. This causes their budgets to be slashed, which further exacerbates the problem.

If you've ever wondered why American inner city schools with loads of minorities tend to be some of the most garbage educational facilities in the first world, this is why. They're underfunded, fail to pass students in numbers equal to better-off counterparts even as they shove literally illiterate students through to the next grade, and get their funding cut for it. A significantly better system would be to provide based on the needs on a case-by-case basis, because any predictable system for funding based on grade scores rather than value of education will be gamed. Not even for necessarily malicious means: If school A wants enough money to be able to fund its science division, they might just have to shove a few failing students out the door.

This, in turn, hurts the already dwindling value of a high school diploma, which hurts everyone leaving high school who can't afford to go into post secondary and thus needs a job in the interim. Folks like me, I might add.

Note: The flaw with a case-by-case basis system is obviously that you'd have to hire thousands of people to investigate school districts. In the US this is compounded by states setting educational standards and curriculum rather than the federal level, meaning that the thousands of people you hire also have to be specially trained and versed in the specific needs of 51 different states. (This isn't even including non-incorporated territories.) This isn't cheap, nor is this particularly fast. The whole system is so choked in a bureaucratic morass that addressing it as a whole will require a thousand tiny cuts rather than a single swing of a giant "fix it" hammer.

Also, if you want to change it, prepare to get swarmed by millions of ideological radicals who will scream about nonsensical shit, like "put god back in school" or "ban all durr religionz". So not only are you fighting a megalithic system with enough red tape to make congress blush, you're also fighting a dozen different radical groups that would commit suicide if they thought it would help get their brainwashing material into the public education system.

No, it won't. Common Core is fundamentally flawed. Relevant life skills that kids need to be taught like basic finance get brushed over for the likes of Shakespeare. Then they double down on stupidity by focusing on how Shakespeare said things, rather than on why.

It's a system we need and it's buried underneath mountains of obtuse trash. The system is inherently flawed and rotten, both teachers and students alike know this. The only ones benefiting from this are the unions and top executives: It's a body with so many malignant tumours that I'm not even sure where one would begin to start cutting them out at this point.

It's not all doom and gloom however. A benefit to Common Core is getting the education in the US on the same page. This makes it so that instead of having to fight 51 different battles to update the curriculum to better standards, there only has to be one fight. Disparate groups spread thinly can come together as a much more potent force within the democratic system to get changes done against both the interests of the Union and Private Education Interests. So I'm cheering it on if just because it will make the fight a much simpler one. The current system is so inane and corrupt that the battle over whether creationism--a thoroughly scientifically debunked theory--should be taught in schools or not is still a battle in some parts of the US. At least if it's centralized, there's a far better chance of fighting a more meaningful and effective campaign for better education.

This user has been banned for: Disruptive behavior, arguments, and harassment. Escalating a situation that could have been resolved peacefully.

*Mandatory in the sense that one of the listed electives during any grade of your choosing had to be an art course.

Make more room for electives at the early Grades. I mean seriously, Grade 9 = 6 Mandatory, 2 Electives. High School is when you're supposed to start specializing and finding your click, not being ham-fisted with pointless information. Now, I'll note further below I start to suggest for a number of other mandatory classes, which would directly conflict with this point, but that leads me to my second point.

Make Grade 13 open to all. I did not like at all how my old High School made Grade 13 something to "apply" to, where only the better off students would be accepted. If people need an extra year to dabble in courses to find themselves out then let them! Hell, in all likelihood the people who need the Grade 13 are probably those who are struggling in classes still looking for where they excel. You kill the entire point of a Grade 13 by denying those people a chance to get more educated. Or maybe make Grade 13 required, give people a little bit more time to self discover and grow up before being thrown into the adult world outright. Or if other Mandatory classes becomes a bit much, the extra year can serve as much needed time to make it so electives don't suffer as a result.

Only Grade 9 English is mandatory. Seriously, Grade's 9-12 are literal duplicates, you take one you take them all.

Not get all obsessive over teaching Cursive Writing. This was actually something my 5th Grade teacher broke the rules on, he recognized I wasn't good at doing cursive, but I was great at doing work on a computer. So he decided to not worry about teaching me cursive writing, and let me mail in my assignments. His reasoning being that friends he had (including professions like doctors) couldn't write for crap either, but it didn't matter cause they could type everything. And let's be honest, technology is becoming more and more dominant every day.

No Mandatory Secondary Language. Yes I know a decent amount of people speak it, but majority of the time (at least here in Canada) French communities and English communities are rather separated save for one or two provinces. You do not need to make students suffer 1000's of hours of poor grades to learn a language that they will never use with the people they interact with.

Likewise only make Grade 9 Math mandatory. Other forms may have some more uses depending on their field, but many people get by without out. Some individuals benefiting doesn't warrant forcing it on the majority that it doesn't benefit.

Math Teachers need to be more open and honest about what the math leads to in the real world. My teacher refused to answer this question taking a stance of "Just do your work, it's Math so it's useful". Not only killing any motivation with the current math, but effectively driving students away from math electives they might have actually wanted to take if they knew the uses of it.

No Mandatory Art Classes. Like Brovo said, not everyone is a creative arts person, not everyone cares for it, and it's not relevant for a ton of fields out there. And being held back because you can't draw or sing well enough is stupid.

Replace Mandatory Gym with Sex-Ed. Seriously, Gym class was pointless and the fact they only put two weeks of it aside for sex ed is terrible. Yes I know, healthy body = healthy mind, but let's be perfectly honest, not everyone enjoys being active. Gym is only going to go so far with students who don't care about it, minimal effort will be given and minimal gain to be had. The only students who gain are those who will enjoy it, and in all honesty those are the students who will already be active outside of class anyways, they don't need a Gym Class for that. By all means, make it an elective, but making it mandatory has it be redundant on those who like being active, and limited (and time consuming) on those who don't like it.

Sex-Ed also should try to address the joys of sex. The majority of time people have safe sex they are doing it for fun, enjoyment and to share passion. The fact we ignore this completely when teaching kids about sex is rather concerning.

Science needs less table of elements memorization and more time focused on stuff like Evolution. Those units got skimmed by way too much, and if you're going into Science you should (in my mind) be learning about your biological history and the world around us. Not the exact symbols and electrons that each element possess.

History classes need to be more on actual History, and not stuff like "Back in the day people had Beaver Hats", "One day someone made Bear Stew... It made people sick", "This was the women basketball team 100 years ago". In what situation is any of that information useful? I mean I know I live in Canada and our history is limited but come on!

Mandatory Religion course, and no I don't mean on a specific Religion. I mean about all religions, may you agree with religion or not (like myself) it has played a huge role in human history, culture and society. We're still surrounded by it, and having a basic understanding of it could do wonders. Plus it allows people to not simply be limited by whatever their Parents tell them behind closed doors.

Like wise, Mandatory Mental Illness course, several most likely. Mental Illness is everywhere, it's becoming more common to find someone with a mental illness now than without one. We need to get people aware and educated on these matters.

While we're at it let's throw in something about things like LGBT, world cultures etc. as well. Humans are a social species, you will interact with others all the time in your working life. Being armed with a better understanding of another will only improve co-operation, performance and the morale of all parties. Effectively, we need a Social Studies curriculum.

Better education on our laws. Seriously, not knowing our laws can be a very bad thing. Canada does fare a bit better here thankfully, but at least where I lived they focused more on what political parties there were, and how a court meeting operated than anything else. It was definitely lacking in teaching people their fundamental rights, laws that protect them etc.

Special support/education needs to be more accepted. School's one size fit's all philosophy does no favors, it screws over a ton of children, but those with special needs especially hard. So when a documented and proven therapy technique comes up and offers to help with the school, to work with the staff to make the students learning the best possible? The Schools should be welcoming new methods of teaching with open arms, not dragging their feet in because it's something different.

Not being as controlling over the students there. The point of High School is to prepare people for the working world or for college/university. We aren't doing that by hounding them for the smallest of things such as getting up to use the washroom without asking. If we want to prepare the students to be adults, we need to treat them as adults, not children that need to have their hand held with everything and under constant surveillance.

Extra Curricular funding can't be so focused/specialized. In my school the majority of cash was thrown at the Music Clubs, with the majority of leftovers given to the Sport Kids. Which basically meant if you didn't want to sing or throw a ball there was no activities for you to get involved in. There needs to be more even funding in more fields, so more students are involves, get motivated to learn more, get exposed to more things etc.

Mandatory Parenting Class, this one is honestly more iffy with me. But there are enough people to run into parenting recklessly like it's some sort of game that there should be some class to slap the realism of child raising into them ahead of time. If nothing else this helps act as quality assurance that the following generation will fare better.

IEPs for everyone. This one's more of a giant overhaul, but we need to get out of the mentality that an IEP is for the odd individual. Everyone learns differently, everyone flourishes under different kinds of assistance, different teaching styles etc. If we learn to simply help every student get in the best situation for them to succeed, rather than reserving it for a select few (which also paints them to be seen as stupid, harassed, criticized etc.) everyone will fair better, both academically and socially.

Set Camera's around the school. All too often does a child get beat up, bullied etc on campus but the school does nothing about it because no teacher was there to witness it. Set up cameras, have it so when this stuff happens there's video proof of it. Plus it can help catch bullies where the victim might decided to stay quiet about it out of either pride or fear of being a rat.

After School Childcare should be an offered and available thing. Just like mentioned before by Jorick with school acting like a daycare, but remember that Parents often don't work the hours that school is open for. They may very well need different hours for their kids to be looked after on. Now, I'm not saying this child care is strictly stick them in a room and play. Make learning part of it, homework aid programs, tutoring services, time to get counselling etc. Treat it a lot like a Study Time class + Optional extra classes if teachers are willing to provide. That can do wonders for both looking after children for parents, and improving the value of their education. Also remember that normal extra-circulars would also still be a thing if the student would rather take part in those instead.

Better Parent-Teacher interaction. Granted this relies way too much on competent and caring parents, but assuming that a child's parents are competent and caring, there should be easy ways for the parents to talk with the teacher. Parents get a better understanding of academic life, Teacher get's a better understanding of the home life, everyone wins.

Pay Teachers more, these are literally the people who are guiding and training our future generations. They are the people responsible for our entire future work force. The fact we pay them minimal amounts for this is atrocious. And the fact we give them minimal respect for this is also rather barbaric.

That's all I can think of for now off the top of my head.
Might think of more tomorrow.

Get rid of that stupid "I pull my child from this unit" thing for Parents when it's Sex Ed. I'm sorry, but your lack of ability to teach your kids about this and make them comfortable about it is not a license to stop the school from doing so.

Teach kids about life skills such as paying taxes. I had a class that tried to do this, but got too focused on teaching people how to do proper interviews (which in itself was rushed) to focus on time on stuff like taxes. (Credit to ElBell to pointing this out).

Better aid/assistance on finding post-secondary education programs and schools (Credit to ElBell for pointing this out).

They need to be more able to let children experience failure without it having academic penalty. A major part of learning is messing up and starting up again, Schools at the moment do the total opposite of that by punishing every failure and making people afraid to try anything potentially risky.

Get rid of Exams, the idea of a giant portion of one's grades being reliant on one single instance, one that relies on short term memory rather than actual knowledge or skill is completely backwards (Credit to Dervish for pointing this out).

Get rid of Homework. The strength of School is to be guided, helped and aided by a professional in the room. You lose all of that doing it at home, it simply becomes a chore with far less learning potential. If it's time management skills you're looking for, give time in class to do assignments, and then finish it at home *if* they can't do it in class in time. Plus, it also screws students up extremely when a Teacher forgets that they're not the only class and pumps out homework as if they are (Credit to Dervish for pointing this out).

Don't set up systems where scoring X amount on a test or getting X Grade average get's teachers bonuses or penalties. You basically set up the class to be a machine to cram very limited information in the students simply to replicate good test results. No real learning, engagement or exploration can take place as a result of this (Credit to Jorick for pointing this out).

Organize Classes by Skill level and Learning Styles. The idea of sorting people by their physical age is honestly nonsensical. Some people are far better at some subjects than others, so they may be able to handle it at a higher level. Also, not all students learn in the same manner so being matched with a teacher with an accommodating teaching style would also allow better learning to take place, with less demand on the teacher to try to cater to a ton of different styles at the exact same time, thereby reducing the attention they can put on any one style (Credit to Jorick for pointing out the Skill level part).

If a student is done their work, let them do something else. May it be on their phone, other school work etc. This does also tie back to the "Treat kids like adults" point as well. Not only are you adding unneeded stress on the student by forcing them to sit around with nothing to do, but you also treating the students like children, preventing them from being able practice skills like Independence (Credit to Rainjay for pointing this out).

Add a 5-10 minute break in between classes. I know what post-secondary students here a thinking, "A break for one hour? Ha! We have 3 hour long classes! And 'if' we do get a break it's after about 2 hours usually!". But remember that for the majority of one's education (save for a few career paths) students are not adults but still growing up, their ability to focus for as long of a time is going to be more limited as a result. Plus, they have mandatory classes they might not even like. Post-secondary students have the luxury of choosing the program/curriculum they sign up for (Credit to Rainjay for pointing this out).

-------------Post End-------------

As for this Common Core stuff?

I do agree that we do need a centralized way to push for things.
That way stuff like evolution doesn't need to be pressed 51 different times.
But at the same time, we should be careful to allow some independence among boards and districts.
Otherwise we completely ignore the specific issues areas face, and fall right back into the "One size fits all" trap.

Aggressive. If I have an idea for a fantasy 1x1, I will design it to the fullest extent I can and then share it with my partner to see what they think, as I am a fan of expanding the various areas of lore and nature within a sandbox universe, such as a bestiary of typical creatures to be found in said universe, a dictionary of gods and godly artifacts, and even maps to the realms of said gods. In other people's roleplays however, I prefer to be passive if it is a group setting, or if it is not a group sandbox.

Not the best at sci-fi...Anything related to Twilight, Fifty Shades, and most anime.

I think it all depends on the school/system. Eventually though, if a kid is being held back enough, I'd imagine Social Services would become involved if there isn't a special reason why the kid is being held back. If it's a behavior issue or an issue where they're simply not doing their work because they're being lazy, and the parents have been called in to try and correct the problem, eventually they're going to check up to see what's going on inside the home.

I can say this from personal experience, the Florida school system is flawed. My daughter passed the third grade with average grades, but because she did not pass their idiotic state testing, she was held back. When we moved up here, the teachers and the administration informed me that was the stupidest thing they had ever heard of. However, in Florida if a child did not pass the FCAT, whether they got straight A's in all their classes or not, they would be held back. This is stupid because not only do they stress these kids out about these tests, but that is all that the curriculum focuses on for the entire year, until the tests are over.

So I can say, in Florida, it is very much possible for a kid to be 17 and in the fifth grade still, because Florida is fucking stupid.

Aggressive. If I have an idea for a fantasy 1x1, I will design it to the fullest extent I can and then share it with my partner to see what they think, as I am a fan of expanding the various areas of lore and nature within a sandbox universe, such as a bestiary of typical creatures to be found in said universe, a dictionary of gods and godly artifacts, and even maps to the realms of said gods. In other people's roleplays however, I prefer to be passive if it is a group setting, or if it is not a group sandbox.

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